Self Defense
by ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild
Summary: Eliot takes care of Parker, after an incident involving a drunk douche who couldn't take "No." for an answer.


"Lemme see."

Okay - so, he's a little gruff. Not really any fault of hers, that's just Eliot's style. Though, his touch is a little more tender when he parts her choppy bangs with his thumb, brushing them away from the wound. The cut, itself, is superficial. It's not deep enough to require stitches, though there had been enough blood to suggest otherwise.

"Is it bad?" despite the childish swing of her legs and the thump of her rubber-soled converse shoes hitting the cabinet door - Parker is sullen and pouting. Lithe body buried in the hitter's leather jacket and her fingers barely peeking out of the sleeves enough to curl around the counter, she looks more like a sulking teenager than whatever the hell her age is.

"Nah." Eliot bends down for a better view of her injury. "You don't need stitches. It's just bleedin'."

But, she still refuses to look at him.

It's not the injury she's so angry and embarrassed about but, rather, how she acquired it. Eliot doesn't blame her, not in the slightest. She was merely defending herself as she had every right to do. But, rather, he blames the asshole who just couldn't take no for an answer and had hemmed her up in a corner until she felt she had no choice but to fight. Only problem is said asshole had about five inches on her in height and about her body weight in muscle.

The minute things started going south for him, he'd pushed her and the fight was on. She's just damn lucky a cut on her forehead is all she came away with. All things considered, she could be hurt a hell of a lot worse.

"Quit blamin' yourself, sweetheart." he's still rifling through cabinets, looking for something. The slightly dusty white first-aid box and a dustier still brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide hides behind a half-empty bottle of aged cognac. "He was an asshole."

"But - "

"Parker." Eliot interrupts her, dropping the box on the counter at her hip along with the bottle of peroxide.

Her mouth opens as if to speak, but she closes it once more when she realizes that he won't be letting her argue with him. The silence is only broken by the tear of paper when he opens a gauze pad and soaks it in hydrogen peroxide. He soaks it through, gives it a little squeeze over the sink, and is standing in front of her, once more.

"This ain't alcohol so it shouldn't sting." he moves her hair, again, and gently presses the wet gauze to the wound.

He's right. It doesn't sting.

The cotton does turn pink fairly quickly, though, and it takes a bit of scrubbing to completely clean the blood but he's gentle enough and she's still sullen enough that pain is either non-existent or just ignored. Once, it's clean, he tosses the gauze and reaches for a tube of Neosporin to help keep away infection and encourage healing.

"Okay." he thumbs the bandage over the wound and lets her hair fall back into place. "Should heal up good. Probably won't scar."

"Thanks, Eliot."

"Hey," he hooks a finger under her chin and lifts her head. "Look at me, darlin'. This," his free hand grazes over the bandage. "wasn't your fault. This was the fault of some asshole, who was never taught to respect a woman when she tells him no."

"I didn't mean to make him so mad." Parker's bottom lip trembles violently.

"Parker," he frames her face with his hands, catching her bottom lip with his thumb. "It wasn't about that. The asshole was probably told no by a few women already and he was drunk and his temper got the best of him." and, oh God, does he want to go rip the son of bitch apart mercilessly. But, Parker needs him, right now. "You caught the worst of it. He probably would have done a lot worse if you hadn't fought back."

Parker's no fool.

In fact, for all of her crazy, she's actually brilliant. Okay, sure, she lacks socially but that is no fault of her own - Archie was a fine thief but that's all he ever amounted to. She knows what Eliot means by a lot worse. That drunken fool might have taken advantage of her, if he thought her unable to fend him off. Hell, who knows what he would have done to her and any other girl who told him no, if Eliot hadn't shown up to take him out. Anger rips through her, like lightning. Her eyes narrow and she growls a little at the thought of that fool daring to touch someone who couldn't properly defend themselves.

"Eliot?"

"Parker."

"I'm glad it was me." she tells him resolutely.

"What?" Eliot's voice rises in volume and just like that, his hands are gone from her face, and he's backing away before he hurts her. However unintentionally. "Parker!"

"I'm glad it wasn't someone else. Someone who may not have known how to fight back." Parker jumps off of the counter and wraps her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Someone who didn't have you. I can fight back and I have you but if he had tried it on some other woman, she wouldn't have been so lucky. Now, because of us, he can't hurt another girl."

Shit.

Despite having a good point, Parker sure had a funny way of getting there. And, by funny, he means not funny at all. The very thought of her being injured in any way, shape, form, or fashion, made him crazy. His stomach knotted up and his head went a little light because this is Parker and as gruff as he is - well, Eliot's pretty sure he'd tear the whole damn world apart for this blonde tornado. Of course, he'd do it for his whole team, but especially her. He's not sure when the realization occurred but it's just sort of settled in his brain and become something he lives with. He knows she can take care of herself, for the most part, but it's always there in the back of his mind. A readiness to tear through, rain death and destruction down on everyone and everything, until he knew without a shadow of a doubt she was okay.

"No," Eliot breathes, wrapping his arms around her. "He can never hurt you or anyone else, ever again."

"I'm sorry, if I scared you." Parker mumbles into his shirt.

"It's alright, darlin'." he kisses her head. "I just can't stand the thought of someone hurting you."

The blonde thief just smiles, pressing closer, settling against him with a content sigh. Eliot tightens his hold and kisses whatever part of her his mouth has access to. It isn't long before she's lifting her head to kiss him properly, small hands knotting in his hair, body still soft and warm against his. He'll neither confirm nor deny his slight whimper when she gives his hair a little tug; relief and gratitude that she's safe, in his arms, not in the hospital being treated for some sort of assault. It doesn't go any farther than soft, tender kisses and reverent words spoken against warm skin.

Though, Parker does make him jump off of a thirty-story skyscraper later.


End file.
